The Marine Girls' 'Beach Party' tape was eventually issued in vinyl form by Whaam! records and later Cherry red stepped in to sign the group and release the 'On My Mind' single.

Some time afterwards came Everything But The Girl, a duo comprising Tracey and Ben Watt, also a Cherry Red young hopeful and quite by coincidence a fellow student at Hull. Most recently has been Tracey's wondrous 'A Distant Shore' a solo 'mini' album.

She wrote her first song when aged 15. She's now a wizened 20-year-old.

We meet up again at Kingston Poly where the Marine Girls are doing one of their rare gigs (due to the geographical distance between the members) supporting the Monochrome Set. Tracey dutifully keeps out appointment and we rendezvous by the mixing desk them adjourn for what she later proclaims as "my first solo interview".

" 'A Distant Shore' wasn't intended as an LP at all, I sent some songs down from Hull to Cherry red and they decided to put them out. It felt right at that length because all the songs were written in a compact space of time just after I'd gone up to Hull.

"I felt it ended there. It sounds corny, but I'd said all I had to say I couldn't have written more songs just to pad it out. I left the songs in chronological order as well so to me it flows really well because I know exactly what each song was about and what was happening. Part of a continuing experience. And then it just ends. It seems really right."

If you songs are so personal and based on your own experiences do you ever fell you're like an outsider observing your own life or do are you ever conscious, when in a particular situation, that it'll be 'good material'?

"That does happen sometimes, yeah. But usually there is a bit of space inbetween. It's not like something happens in the evening and I write about it that night. I tend to reflect later. But it's not so much thinking 'ah this will make a good song, more a way of getting something out and expressing something for yourself as much as for other people. If you write things down you can really clear things up for yourself. So I do sometimes think that best way to sort outs something is that is confusing or disjointed is to write it down somehow."

The only non-original inclusion on 'A Distant Shore' is Lou Reed's 'Femme Fatale'. How come?

"I'm wary of doing covers of songs that mean most to me. I feel I could never do justice to a Billie Holiday song, say, whereas I felt I could do 'Femme Fatale' because it has never been recorded as well as it could be. The original was performed brilliantly but the recording was terrible. I thought the only way to hear it properly would be for me to sing it."

The B-side of a coming-soon single (a re-done version of album rack 'Plain Sailing') is a Monochrome Set tune 'Goodbye Joe'. recalls Tracey:

"Bid (Monochrome Set vocalist) was really embarrassed. He thought his lyrics were terrible but most people who've heard my version say the words are lovely. It's strange."

Later that evening, despite the pleading of Bid, the entire staff of Cherry Red, me, and the audience, she steadfastly refuses to step on stage and croon a duet with the Set's singer.

What kind of people do you think will but 'A Distant Shore'?

"I'm riding on the crest of a wave from the things I've done before. So I suppose the good publicity and chart ratings it has got is due to people thinking 'let's see what Tracey's solo album is like'.

"All sorts of strange people like the Marine Girls. We get lots of peculiar letters, We started all those 'sea' connotations and there was nothing meant by it but people asked if we're obsessed by the sea and do we eat fish for breakfast? It's quite annoying actually. We get sent shells. Little kids send up letters about their trips to the seaside."

Would you like to do solo gigs?

"I've been offered solo gigs but turned them down. I can just about cope with going on stage with two other people but on my own I'd be terrified, it's so risky, you're such a target up there. I'm brave enough o put my songs on record but not brave enough to get up on stage in front of people and sing them. It takes real courage to stand on your own and sing songs about yourself. I haven't got that courage... yet."

Those ogres, gone cynical with age, who lurk in the darkest corners of the rock press may liken your album to the early seventies rash of mostly monotonous indulgencies by the ... singer/songwriter! (Outbreak of mass vomiting in rear stalls).

"Oh God... no! That would be a condemning phrase. I don't know many records of that period anyway apart from, Nick Drake and John Martyn (Shazam! She happily picks the most credible of the species). I do like Nick Drake a lot, but it's a bit dodgy getting lumped in with the Paul Simons and the Billy Joels of this world."

How would you sum up the mood of 'A Distant Shore'?

"Quite thoughtful I suppose. People say they relax to it but I can't relax to it at all. I play it and it puts me all on edge! The music is relaxing but the lyrics certainly aren't. I'd hate it to be thought of as background music."

It's very unobtrusively produced , enabling the simple voice and guitar to retain their abundant natural beauty. (The disc was committed to tape at the legendary Shed, an actual back garden recording studio in Ilford belonging to Patrick Bermingham who, a few years ago, ousted the lawn-mower and spade and installed an – ex Pink Floyd! – 8 track set up).

"I was desperate not to make it sound produced. I did want to make it sound like a sincere collection of songs rather than a polished produced record. I do feel guilty sometimes about putting a bit of reverb on the vocals, as though everything should be left naked.

"For the single (the aforementioned 'Plain Sailing', given a beefed-up finish at Alvic Studios) I wanted more people to hear it and get it played on the radio. You want to be independent and committed and do what you want to do but if no one's going to listen then it's self-defeating. It's all a bit low key compared to what others have done. I could have got some massive producer in like Adam Kidron (!) and gone really over the top. I feel guilty sometimes about making polished records because I've got this gloom of commerciality hanging over my head."

But there are producers and producers. Some have their own stock-in-trade 'sound' which they'll gleefully dump on anyone who'll pay enough and then there is the other, generally less heralded, kind who can get into what an artist is about and help them bring it across on record.

"Exactly, for the Marine Girls LP (possibly released in the new year) we got Stuart Moxham in to help us and that was just what we needed. He has some sense of what we are doing because he really liked the 'Beach Party' album. He had more idea of how a studio worked than we did but he didn't impose himself over everything. He just polished off a few things without, hopefully, losing any of the essential qualities."

Speaking generally, everything that you've put out has been well received by the media. How much do good reviews mean to you personally? Do you think they help 'validate' what you've done?

"Clearly, if you are writing personal songs, it's very important to have people reassure you and day it's worthwhile and you're not just writing indulgent, sentimental love songs.

"Someone told me that the Marine Girls' 'On My Mind' made them cry. That was incredible. The opinions of friends are as worthy as reviewers. I would hate to be acclaimed just on a critical basis. I like to think the songs can mean something to people on personal terms rather than how well played or produced they are."

Would you like to hear cover versions of your own songs?

"Depends on how they were done, I suppose. And why. If they had 14 double-tracked vocals and a horn section on and it became a hit I would probably feel sick, I'd hate it. I'd feel jealous if someone did one of my songs in a way I liked and had a hit with it. I'd be flattered of course but there's always that old thing of the person performing a song getting the acclaim for it."

But you'd get some money.

"Yeah, but that isn't the way I'd like to make money. Not that I'd refuse it though."

Would you ever like to write specifically for other people?

"No. I always want to do my own songs myself. Even in the Marine Girls, if a song is mine it's very personal, I like to sing it myself instead of Alice doing it."

It's odd. The Marine Girls, Everything But The Girl, and your solo stuff are all part of you but each is very different and reaches an extremely diverse audience.

"Yeah. With the Marine Girls we tend to get punks liking it yet Everything But the Girl have been on Radio Two with my granny listening. I feel a bit chameleon-like at times.

"Actually my granddad's got this new cassette recorder, he doesn't know how to work it but I send tapes of everything that I do and he jigs about. They're very proud. To them someone they know making a record, let alone someone they're related to, is incredible. They can't believe it. To them, only famous people make records."